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“I enjoy making a sandwich for my boyfriend... Can I still be a feminist?”

At the end of a day at work, I have on occasion found myself struggling with two “shoulds”:

“To be the perfect girlfriend, I should make my boyfriend a sandwich.”

But: “To remain a staunch feminist, I should tell him to make his own darn sandwich!”

The competing voices return when I am getting ready for a night out:

“I should wear high heels - they’ll make my legs look great with this skirt. Plus, they make me feel more powerful and confident.”

But: “High heels are a symbol of male domination! Men don't worry about how their legs will look if they wear a certain pair of shoes, so why should you have to? Plus, you know your feet will be aching by the end of the night.”

The order “Make me a sandwich!” is often used to allude (now, usually jokingly) to a bygone era’s home life in which a husband was “the king of his castle” and that castle was his wife’s dungeon of domestic duties. Decades ago, in the first issue of Ms., Jane O'Reilly identified sexist statements like this as setting off many of the individual "click" moments that inspired women to join the feminist movement.

I recently read Reading Women: How the Great Books of Feminism Changed My Life by Stephanie Staal to get another woman's perspective on what feminism means for women today. In the book, she revisits the feminist canon she read in college while simultaneously trying to figure out her life as a wife and young mother.

Although Staal did not tell me whether or not I should make sandwiches or wear high heels, her account helped me reconcile my inner girlfriend and feminist - she taught me that I can be both.